Focus on White-Blue Beats

Mike FloresThursday, July 28, 2011

"The report of my death was an exaggeration."—Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, 1897

"Ditto, bro."—Caw-Blade, 2011

ou can take the Stoneforge Mystic and the Jace, the Mind Sculptor out of Caw-Blade... but apparently leaving the "Caw" (Squadron Hawk) and the "Blade" (Sword of Feast and Famine) leaves a heck of a deck list. Several recent tournament results—including more than one high-profile event just this past weekend—saw Caw-Blade reappropriations in top spots (including the top spot, on more than one occasion).

The most impressive of these was probably the 2011 France National Championship. The now-reigning king of France had to go through Pro Tour Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel on the way to his title; his weapon of choice... You guessed it! Caw-Blade!

Primot's version is much more creature-oriented and offensive than previous builds. Where the "classic" Caw-Blade was just eight creatures (Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk) all playing well past their ostensible numbers, the France champ's build has tons and tons of heavy hitters.

Meanwhile, back on Magic's home court, Caw-Blade was posting more and more impressive finishes. At the StarCityGames.com Open Series event in Seattle last weekend, two consistent overachievers on that circuit met in the finals in a 74-card Caw-Blade mirror.

Fellow finalist Edgar Flores swapped out the Sun Titan in the sideboard for a Negate.

While still packing a core of four Squadron Hawks, plus Sword of Feast and Famine as the Equipment of choice, the StarCity finals Caw-Blade list was quite differently focused. Instead of mostly creatures for threats and just one Gideon Jura, Nick and Edgar played five planeswalkers, with the backbone of Jace Beleren.

Their deck leaned 50% more on Sword of Feast and Famine, with three copies instead of the French champ's duo; their main creature just the classic "Caw."

What they did have main deck as a source of creatures—and a way to get back into games where they start out behind—is new Magic 2012 workhorse Timely Reinforcements. It is relatively easy to turn a short-term disadvantage into a massive swing with this new card. Three mana for three creatures, and/or 6 life? Timely Reinforcements could potentially undo a Ball Lightning and leave you with a profit!

Standard is a format with truly great and efficient white creatures. These can range from relatively inexpensive heavy hitters like Mirran Crusader to demi-Titans like Hero of Bladehold to card-advantage engines like Squadron Hawk (and formerly Stoneforge Mystic). The Tempered Steel archetype for the most part eschews aggressively costed and nakedly powerful white creatures in favor of greater synergy.

With the exception of one-drop Glint Hawk, there is no pressing need for the deck to be white otherwise. A slugger like Porcelain Legionnaire can come down with Phyrexian mana whether or not white mana is available, and probably hits the battlefield in a white deck at a 2 life premium more than half the time.

The deck is largely an offensive artifact deck. Yes, Tempered Steel is white, but the vast majority of attackers are artifacts that get bigger and badder via the Steel. When he convinced multiple Hall of Fame superstars to audible to his Hawkward deck back at Pro Tour Paris, Steve Sadin was even playing Vector Asps... with no plans to give it infect!

Ishida's Tempered Steel deck is hyper-aggressive, with three copies of Contested War Zone in the land mix. Contested War Zone can help you deal a ton of damage when you are swarming with multiple attackers, but it is an obvious liability if you are ever on the defensive (the opponent hits you and gets a free card while simultaneously stunting your mana development).

A similar strategy was played to the Top 8 of the Australia National Championship by John Jiann Hua Chin. All of Chin's changes relative to Ishida's winning deck list were in his sideboard:

As we've said, Tempered Steel decks are (always) white largely because the card Tempered Steel is white, but for most of the cards, there isn't a strong allegiance to that color. You certainly don't have to be mono-white.

Andrew Bennett cracked the Top 8 of the Australia with a very slight blue splash:

That said, a deeper blue splash is certainly possible for the Tempered Steel archetype. Here is a look by Caw-Blade Grand Prix Champion Dave Shiels (a player who knows about adding a Preordain to a white beatdown creature deck if ever there was one):

A heavier blue commitment requires a bit more in the blue lands department; Shiels answered that requirement with four copies of Glacial Fortress. But what is he doing with these?

Preordain – Less a one-mana play in this deck than you might see elsewhere, Preordain is going to help dig for Tempered Steel or Steel Overseer to boost the rest of the guys; of course it can help deliver answers (Dispatch when you are under pressure by a particular creature, and so on).

Mana Leak – Dave's take on the Tempered Steel archetype adds an additional wrinkle out of the sideboard, especially useful against control deck with cards like Day of Judgment that could sweep up "just" a bunch of little white creatures. Mana Leak gives Tempered Steel a repositioning opportunity (from beatdown to aggro-control, in the vein of CounterSliver decks of yore), and can of course also be used to surgically stop any number of slower, but very powerful, cards that a hyper-aggressive deck might see as a midgame stop sign or tempo robber.

Most of this article has been devoted to a particular stripe of decks and color combination—essentially aggressive, if sometimes flexible, white-blue decks—but I would like to take a moment to look at a couple of different Birthing Pod decks, especially as one of them won a National Championship last week.

So basically, even when you are not combo-killing the opponent, your "other" line of attack is still pretty awesome.

Nicoll's version has Exarch Twin lockdown points at 2 with Spellskite, and again at 5 with Urabrask the Hidden; the latter will keep an opposing Twin deck from being able to go off in one turn (even when you have the combo, all your tokens will enter the battlefield tapped, and hence will not be able to attack). Last, Nicoll's deck runs both Ponder and Preordain (albeit four of neither), which can help set up either line of offense.

As was mentioned earlier, Olivier Ruel played a very different, Bant-colored Birthing Pod deck in France Nationals:

From straight beatdown like Tempered Steel, to beatdown with a little control like... Tempered Steel, to an echo of Caw-Blade, pure combo, or hybrid decks various, Standard in the summer of 2011 continues to offer different options for whatever kind of strategy you want to pick up. Good luck, whichever one that is!